Book Review: Closing Time

 The sequel to Catch-22, this book is just as fantastic as the first. I won't write an 8-page rant like I did with Catch-22 but maybe I should.
I read this book while I was in Russia, and it was absolutely wonderful to add to the already great experience of being in Russia. Although, sometimes while I was reading in the back of Masha's class I had to cover my mouth and remind myself not to laugh.
The character development alone makes me so happy. Yossarian is here, and he's... sane. Moderately. I mean, he's still Yossarian, but he seems to have more or less recovered from the trauma of the war. They discuss Howard Snowden many times, and every time it hits me right in the empathy. The poor boy... of course, I do wonder if -had I been given the chance to get to know his character better- I would have gotten tired of him. What might I have thought of Howard Snowden if he'd been more than a trauma? I don't know, and I never will. But I like to wonder.
Closing Time brings me back to many of my favorite characters, including Milo Minderbinder (who has a son, it's wonderful) and Chaplain Albert T. Tappman (once again separated from his family, poor guy). Of course it mentions other original characters, and there are some very good new ones. The book is written in the same manner as its predecessor, with chapters titled using character names and focusing on those characters and their interactions. It's interesting to see the original characters in their twilight years, some of them dying before the end of the novel. One of my favorite things about this book is that it brings in Sammy Singer, the tailgunner who kept waking up and fainting in Catch-22 when Yossarian was trying to save Snowden. He's a great new character to develop. Joseph Heller also writes himself and Kurt Vonnegut into the story, which adds an almost disturbing sense of reality to an otherwise somewhat... mind-twisting story. As is to be expected from the sequel to Catch-22, there are several plot arcs that are very strange.
Given that fewer people have read Closing Time than have read Catch-22, I'm trying really hard not to ruin anything here... oh god it's so good.
I love the humor, I love the characters... I love the ending.
Aaaah this book is so good.
Set in New York for the most part, this book looks at death again, but this time as a natural conclusion to a life. Or not. If you've read Catch-22 then go read Closing Time immediately. If you haven't read Catch-22, then go read that first and read Closing Time when you're done. Please.